Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou on facing a young inquisitive Hurzeler
04/10/2024
Tottenham Hotspurs Training Ground, London, UK
04/10/2024
Tottenham Hotspurs Training Ground, London, UK
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:0031 to be a Premier League manager is crazy, all being it that you were the same age.
00:06There was a particular challenge for you,
00:07seeing as you were managing some ex-teammates as well,
00:10but just in terms of the pure age thing, as a young coach,
00:13what's the biggest challenge going into a dressing room
00:15where people are possibly some old people?
00:18How do you win the moment?
00:20Yeah, look, I've often said that I think the key to all that,
00:24irrespective of your age or your kind of background,
00:27is that you have to be yourself,
00:31and that's harder when you're younger,
00:33because do you really know yourself?
00:36And I think the worst thing you can do is go in there
00:39and try and make an impression by being somebody you're not,
00:42because over the course of time, people will see through it.
00:44Eventually, your true self shows yourself.
00:46Now, I remember, like I said, when I was his age,
00:50and I walked into the dressing room, like I said,
00:53guys who I'd played with, some close friends of mine,
00:58if I went in there and it was anything other than myself,
01:00they'd see through it straight away,
01:01because they'd go, well, that's not you.
01:03So I just tried to be myself.
01:04And like I said, it's not easy,
01:06because at that age, do you really know yourself anyway?
01:09Because you don't know how you react to certain situations,
01:11and that's the challenging bit.
01:14But I'm sure for Fabian, it's a constant process now of him
01:19reading the room and seeing how the players are reacting
01:22and interacting with him.
01:23Your staff are important,
01:24because they're kind of your messengers as well.
01:26And the key to it, like I said,
01:29is just to somehow have a real self-awareness
01:33about who you are as a person,
01:35because that will be revealed at some point.
01:39How you are when you lose,
01:40how you are when things aren't going well
01:42will all be revealed.
01:43And if what you've shown them first up is not really you,
01:48I think over the course of time, you're gonna lose them,
01:50because they're gonna say,
01:51well, we don't really believe what you're saying.
01:53Just on the flip side of that,
01:54I don't know if you saw the pictures of Jürgen Klopp
01:56this week getting an award in Germany, but-
01:58He looked a million bucks, didn't he?
01:59Yeah, well, that's what I mean.
02:01Five months out of the job, he looks 10 years.
02:03Funny that, yeah.
02:05Has he done a press conference since?
02:06Nah.
02:08I'll pay to remind you,
02:09but as well as Fabian being the youngest,
02:11you're now the oldest.
02:12Yeah, thank you, mate.
02:12You're on the top.
02:14But in all seriousness, do you ever,
02:15when you look at how good Jürgen's looking now,
02:18do you ever worry about what toll
02:20it might be taking on you?
02:20And as you get older,
02:22how do you, what do you have to do differently
02:23to maintain the physical and psychological oomph
02:26that you need to do the job?
02:28Yeah, look, it is a challenge.
02:29And like I said, I think the role is becoming
02:32more difficult than when I first started, absolutely.
02:36Just in terms of the demands,
02:37and not just in the Premier League,
02:38but just in general, the demands of,
02:40and the pressures and the sort of short-term nature
02:44of roles in general in football for me.
02:50I mean, I'm a manager,
02:50and I've got, you know, my philosophy on all that
02:54is that I think just generally in life,
02:58stress is the biggest thing that will hamper
03:00those things you're talking about,
03:01your health, whether you have mental, physical health.
03:04And I've learned to get to a space
03:07where I try not to let that into my life,
03:09whatever, in whatever circumstance,
03:10particularly in the professional world.
03:12And, you know, that becomes really disciplined,
03:15like I said, in just making sure
03:18that what's important to you stays important to you.
03:22Don't get sort of drawn away from that
03:26by being dragged into areas
03:28that other people potentially want to take you in,
03:30that, like I said, I've become really good at making sure.
03:34Because I think if I'm, you know, like I said,
03:36I am, you know, the oldest now,
03:39and if I ever get to the stage
03:42where I don't wake up in the morning
03:44and really look forward to the day,
03:45I'll know then, you know, that's the time for me.
03:47There's no point in me hanging in there
03:49because that's when I think
03:50you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
03:51And that's where that stress gets in.
03:53But it's just, again, I think a lot of it
03:56is just about understanding yourself as a person.
03:58And I know what's important to me in my life.
04:00And I know what's important to me in my professional life.
04:04And that's my anchor.
04:06And if I stay to that,
04:07hopefully I kind of keep everything else away.
04:12Have you managed to keep your curiosity?
04:14Oh, absolutely.
04:16You know, I think, I really think it's important.
04:20And the beauty of it, it takes you down different roads.
04:24So, you know, I'm probably not as curious
04:26about the same things I was curious about 30 years ago.
04:29Back then it was like, you know, football saturation.
04:32Now it's more about life and other things.
04:35And I think it's important, you know,
04:37for us in our roles where 99% of our work is, you know,
04:46mental, not physical, how do you exercise your mind?
04:50And I think being curious is the best way to do that.
04:53So it takes you to some weird and wonderful places, mate,
04:56that you normally wouldn't expect.
04:58But, yeah, I still have that.
05:00That's not why it's a lot.
05:01Yeah.
05:02There's no secrets in football.
05:03So it's just being curious.
05:04Presumably you're...
05:05Yeah, you look beyond it.
05:06...trained in the same way.
05:07Yeah, I...
05:08Where do you go to?
05:09Oh, mate, just life, mate.
05:11You know, it's like we get our heads up from these things
05:16and just experience life.
05:17You know, you'd be amazed what you see.
05:18I learn things from my kids.
05:20I learn things from my wife.
05:21I learn things from my friends,
05:23from people I interact with,
05:25I read about, I listen to.
05:28Just life, you know?
05:30And it's the best educator there is, you know?
05:36Better than school, better than anything else is life.
05:39But you've got to be engaged in it, you know?
05:42And like I said, it's not like I'm wandering the streets
05:44and talking to random strangers,
05:46but I think you have a conversation with someone
05:50or you listen to someone or you interact with someone
05:52and you walk away, as I said,
05:55the best conversations you can have
05:57are the ones where you don't talk and just listen.
06:00And I'm a good listener.
06:03When you look back and you're just starting out as a manager,
06:07is it in some ways more fun in those days?
06:10Because the pressure's a bit different.
06:12It's like being, if you were to be out of a job suddenly,
06:15you'd probably walk into another one at some point.
06:17When you're a young manager starting out,
06:19there's no guarantee that that might be your only chance.
06:23Yeah, but I mean, I know what you're saying,
06:28but at the same time, I think for any manager, you know,
06:32I mean, I was watching sort of Graeme Potter on Monday night
06:34and it doesn't matter sort of the payoff
06:38or you get another job,
06:39it's still not great to lose your job.
06:41That feeling is still there.
06:42I think people kind of think,
06:44oh, he'll be all right, he'll get another job
06:46or he's got a good payout.
06:47You're still, you know, you're driven by wanting to succeed
06:50and you don't like when somebody said,
06:52well, no, sorry, you haven't.
06:53So I think that has to be there.
06:56I always say in this job, if you get comfortable,
06:58if job security is your main driver,
07:00you're pretty much gone.
07:02There's gotta be that competitive edge,
07:03but I still find it fun.
07:05I still enjoy it.
07:09Like I said, there's never a day I wake up and think,
07:11oh, I've got to go in today.
07:13I've got a press conference at 11 o'clock
07:15and, you know, I think I just enjoy it.
07:19I feel blessed to do what I do.
07:20And, but that doesn't mean that I, you know,
07:25I'm comfortable with it and it's,
07:26oh, it's okay if I don't succeed here.
07:27No, no, I'm getting up.
07:29I want to succeed here.
07:30That drive is definitely there.
07:33Dan.
07:34I was just wondering,
07:35you said you'd be moving to the midway game.
07:38Did he have to kind of convince you
07:40that that was his best position?
07:41Because he was very vocal about it
07:42back in the last season.
07:44Pretty clear that he wanted to play now.
07:46I may be wrong, but I seem to remember you saying
07:49that you still thought he was a winger
07:50until the spring of last year.
07:51So how did that process happen?
07:53No, no, and I, you know, when I said that,
07:56he was because we didn't have any other options
07:58for ourselves out there.
08:00And a lot of these things are just an evolution.
08:03You know, again, you always got to temper,
08:08you know, what players say and, you know,
08:10what they want.
08:11Ultimately, my role is to kind of try and figure out
08:16what the best is for the team
08:17and what the best is for the player.
08:19I always thought he could play inside
08:21because when I looked at his,
08:22I mean, you know, whenever, you know,
08:24when I took the job,
08:24I kind of looked into every player's background.
08:26I could see a lot of his early background
08:29was playing in more central areas
08:30and he kind of developed into this sort of wide player
08:33in different kinds of systems.
08:34And it kind of suited him when it was a transition
08:37of counter-attacking team,
08:38because, you know, he has that capacity to run.
08:40But with the way we played, I could see,
08:43like I said, I think the thing I noticed with Deki
08:46after a while was that he felt constrained playing
08:50as a winger in our system.
08:52I still think in a different system,
08:53he could play very, very well as a winger.
08:55I think he showed that
08:57because he just wanted to be involved all the time.
08:59And like I said, if you look at the way our wingers play,
09:01that's sometimes they've got to,
09:02the discipline is in not being involved
09:04just by holding your position.
09:05So it was then a matter of, you know,
09:08getting him inside and then,
09:09but then he still had to work with the parameters of,
09:12you know, how our guys inside work.
09:14And, you know, he's thriving in it at the moment.
09:18And I think it's exciting
09:19the potential he has to play in there.
09:21Just talking of your wingers,
09:23team have missed a couple of one-on-ones against United.
09:25There was that chance last night
09:26when you tried to go for a runkeeper
09:28and it was fantastic.
09:29I mean, how is his confidence?
09:31I mean, I guess, do you kind of want more from him
09:33than you kind of got?
09:35Yeah, no, look,
09:36no, again, you know,
09:37it was 14 days ago,
09:38those questions were asked of Brennan, you know,
09:40and it's like I said,
09:43I think I said at the time,
09:44it's where we're at in this world
09:45where we just think he's missed two chances,
09:47so he's hopeless.
09:48No, he's not hopeless.
09:50All footballers at this level
09:52are very, very good footballers.
09:53He's just had a bad day.
09:55If you write a bad article,
09:56it doesn't mean you're hopeless.
09:58You go,
09:59well, actually, I could have done better there,
10:01but I'll write the next one now.
10:03Like I said, last night, Timo,
10:05his first action that he took on the winger
10:06put in a brilliant cross for Will
10:08and, you know, Will didn't quite get on the end of it.
10:11And if that goes in,
10:12he's had a great assist.
10:13Like you said, then he gets a chance to one-on-one.
10:15If he scores that,
10:16in the last two games,
10:17he could have had a couple of goals.
10:17We'd be having a different conversation,
10:18but that's the fine lines.
10:20But in terms of his general play,
10:22I think the last two games have been really good for us.
10:26He's been taking on his players,
10:28but getting in the right areas,
10:29yes, goals help.
10:31We've seen that with Brendan for those kinds of positions,
10:33but that doesn't mean he's not a good player,
10:36you know, and that's where we just,
10:38you know, just,
10:41just bemuses me,
10:42well, not bemuses me, it's a wrong word,
10:43but I get really annoyed when,
10:47you know, they put everything into that moment
10:49to say that, oh, he's not a good player.
10:51Of course he's a good player.
10:52He's a fantastic player.
10:55Scoring goals would help him,
10:56would help us, yes,
10:57but we'll persevere with him
11:00because I still think he's contributing to the team.
11:02And as we've seen with Brendan,
11:04those kinds of things,
11:05and, you know, Dom,
11:06like I said, 14 days ago,
11:08I was sitting here asking,
11:10you know, answering questions about Dom Solanke
11:12having not scoring in Brendan,
11:14and now we're talking about him in the England team
11:17and Brendan scoring.
11:18So it's that fine, fine balance.
11:21But, you know, I think his performance
11:24the last two games have been better for us
11:26in terms of doing his role as a winger in our team.
11:30Yes, a goal would be great for him,
11:32but not for me to say that, you know,
11:35I expect more from you in that position.
11:38And just on Fabian again,
11:40there's a little chat about his high line
11:42after the Chelsea game.
11:44I'm guessing that's quite familiar.
11:46Yeah.
11:49I don't know, man.
11:50So it's a question you'd need to ask him.
11:54Yeah, our high line against Chelsea is quite infamous.
11:58I don't think he took that as a carbon copy,
12:01but look, I think he has,
12:04when you look at Brighton,
12:05there's been a consistency about their football,
12:08probably since Graham,
12:10maybe even preceding Graham came in,
12:12and then obviously with Roberto,
12:14and you can see still that possession,
12:16but I think there has been a change
12:18in the way they defend.
12:19They're a lot more aggressive.
12:22I think that's sort of Fabian's imprint on it.
12:24So great challenge for us in terms of that.
12:27Just on that actually, for a follow-up,
12:30I think this club has tended to kind of lurch
12:33between styles in the past.
12:34You know, they went from Venus Boas to Harry Redknapp,
12:37from Pochettino to Mourinho.
12:40Is it part of what you're doing now,
12:42that this kind of club DNA that the chairman's talked about
12:45and Yohan Lang's talked about,
12:47a brightly good example of that,
12:48the kind of smooth transitions between projects
12:51that the co-managers assume to play as a similar?
12:54Oh, look, I think it definitely,
13:00it just makes real important decisions in a football club
13:04a lot easier, in my opinion.
13:06If you know what you want,
13:08in terms of, say, style of play, style of player,
13:12if you know this is what I want,
13:14well, there's plenty of evidence.
13:15You go look at a manager and you say,
13:17well, how have these teams played?
13:18Or you look at a player, how has he played, right?
13:21But if you don't, and you just say,
13:22well, he's a great manager, let's just bring him in,
13:24and you say, but I also want him to play attacking football,
13:27but you look and he hasn't done that,
13:28well, you're gonna, doesn't mean you get it wrong,
13:32but it's more likely to be not a good fit.
13:34Same with players.
13:35So, and like I said, this is,
13:38it's about what the club really identifies
13:41as important to them.
13:42So Brighton have identified.
13:43So I think that's why they've picked managers
13:46who have all done well for them,
13:47because they go, well, this is what we want,
13:49this is what we've got,
13:51and this guy has shown evidence he can do that.
13:54And like I said, it's the same with players.
13:55Like, unless you have a real clear idea
13:57of how you, what kind of striker,
13:58what kind of winger, what kind of centre-back you want.
14:02Just going for the best centre-back
14:03isn't necessarily gonna work.
14:05Just going for the best manager is not gonna work.
14:08And it's a big part of sort of my decisions I've made,
14:11you know, in my career is about where I'm going.
14:15Do they know what they're getting?
14:16Because I'm not changing.
14:18It's not like they're gonna put me in here and say,
14:19well, look, we want you to play counter-attack.
14:21That's not gonna happen.
14:22So I just think it's,
14:25but, you know, at the same time,
14:28clubs, owners, you know,
14:31they get pressurised and saying,
14:33well, he's a great manager, he's available,
14:34go and get him.
14:35But, you know, is he gonna be a good fit?
14:38Don't know.
14:38So I think it's the way to go,
14:39but others choose a different path.
14:42Okay, we've only got a couple of minutes left.
14:43We'll go there and then...
14:44Yeah, sorry.
14:45I've been raveling on today.
14:46Hi, nice to meet you.
14:48You too, bud.
14:49When it comes to Richarlison as well,
14:50there's some gipsy sport going on in the field.
14:52How close is he back there?
14:53Yeah, he's going well.
14:54Hopefully, post-international break,
14:57we're kind of hoping we'll get him sort of involved
14:59in team training during the international break.
15:02Sort of, we've always got a smaller group,
15:04integrate him and then,
15:05provided he gets through that,
15:07I reckon post-international break he should be okay.
15:09And he established himself
15:10more towards the end of last season as well,
15:11and now he's got a primary striker in the building as well.
15:13How do you kind of foresee the dynamic of Richie and Dom
15:16kind of competing with one another after the break?
15:17Oh, mate, I'd love that.
15:19You know, it's exactly what we want.
15:21Yeah, that was the plan at the start of the year,
15:23and then you end up, you know,
15:25second game of the season,
15:26neither of them available.
15:27So we've already seen we've got a hell of a lot of games,
15:30and we want to maintain and be competitive in all of them.
15:33And I can't wait to get Richie back available.
15:35He's, like I said, when he played for us last year
15:38and he was fit, he was, he scored goals, you know?
15:40So for me to have the ability to have him and Dom
15:44as our strikers, and Richie can play wide as well,
15:47but especially in that central area,
15:49yeah, can't wait to get him back.
15:51But at the same time, you know,
15:53his recent history over the last probably two, three years
15:56is that he hasn't been able to sustain,
15:59you know, he's kind of broken down.
16:01So what we're trying to do this time around
16:03is try and do everything right
16:05with everything we do with him
16:07so that when he comes back, he stays back.
16:09So I think that's the key with Richie
16:10and, yeah, hopefully that's the case.
16:13John, finish with you, please.
16:15Do you remember back in 96, anybody saying,
16:1731, how's this going to happen?
16:20Are we going to work with this?
16:21Yeah, a lot of people, yeah.
16:23Myself included, yeah.
16:28And, yeah, when you look back now, I mean,
16:30it's just, I think to myself,
16:32just even the person I was back then now,
16:34but having said that, I felt comfortable.
16:38I didn't feel uncomfortable.
16:39You know, I think for whatever reason,
16:45I ignored my age and I just felt,
16:46okay, this is what I want to do.
16:47And I feel comfortable standing up in front of people
16:50and sort of trying to lead and direct.
16:53So, but, you know, when I think about,
16:58you know, the kind of person I was back then
16:59and just the general life experience I had,
17:01I thought, geez, you know, it's,
17:04if I actually sat down and thought about it,
17:06it's pretty overwhelming.
17:07Because like I said, your first job is really important
17:09in football as a manager.
17:10You know, if you don't succeed there,
17:14do you get a second chance
17:15if you don't have a really strong
17:16sort of playing pedigree behind you?
17:19You know, so, but I didn't think about it.
17:21And I think maybe that's the kind of innocence of youth
17:26in a managerial terms, not in life terms,
17:28where you just go, I've got the opportunity,
17:31I'm going to go for it.
17:33Did you learn anything from Fabian when he came to you?
17:37Did he get used to the talking?
17:39Yeah, no, like I said, I'm a pretty good listener.
17:43So when they ask me too many questions,
17:45I'm pretty good at asking questions back.
17:48I think he extracted more from the staff
17:49than he did from me, but yeah, I just,
17:53I loved, again, it was a timely reminder for me,
17:57his enthusiasm and the fact that he was inquisitive
18:00and, you know, you feed off that
18:03and he walks out of the building, I go, okay, well,
18:05he's got something out of us, what can we get now?
18:06You know, and what's our next or my next sort of learning?
18:10So yeah, you do, I enjoy that energy.
18:13I enjoy that enthusiasm.
18:15You also get a little bit of a, yeah,
18:18a little bit of pride that somebody wants to come
18:21and do what you're doing.
18:21Cause if I wasn't doing anything, you know, decent,
18:26they wouldn't be coming and asking questions.
18:28So that makes you feel good as well.
18:29So, and you're never too old to feel nice about yourself.
18:32And so, so yeah, so yeah.
18:35Was it a surprise that his name popped out
18:37of the Brighton supercomputer?
18:39No, I don't think so.
18:41I think when you kind of,
18:42cause I'd followed his team pretty closely
18:44cause like I said, Jackson Irvine was there
18:47and another young Aussie boy, Connor Metcalfe,
18:48I kind of followed the Aussies anyway.
18:50And as I said, a plethora of games on a weekend,
18:53I pick and choose what I watch,
18:55but I'd followed him and I kind of sensed
18:57that he'd be one of the ones that probably were a decent fit
19:02for kind of the way Brighton work.
19:04Okay. Thanks guys.
19:05Thanks.
19:27Oh, we're good.